Film emulation

Film emulation is a technique used to give digital image the appearance of being captured with an analogue photosensitive media. The desired effect is achieved by manipulating specific characteristics like film grain, halation, light reflection, bloom, film artifacts etc.

To emulate film, special functions or plugins available in video or photo editing software are used. The result is an image that closely resembles a photograph or motion picture captured on analogue media, even though it was taken digitally.

History

In the early years of photography, such media as heliography (1822), daguerreotype (1839), cyanotype (1842), tintype (1853) and ambrotype (1854) were used to capture images.

Since its invention in the 1880s, film has long been the most popular way to store images. Popularized by the Lumière brothers, Kodak and Pathé, celluloid film became the basis of modern photography and cinematography.

In filmmaking

First of all, film is strongly associated with cinema, which, until the widespread use of television, remained a monopoly on moving pictures.

Developed Kodak monochrome negative film

The rise of video formats introduced by companies like Sony, Sharp, Hitachi, and Panasonic in the 1980s further solidified the divide between video for home use and film for cinemas.

Sony released one of the first digital cinema cameras, the HDW-F900 CineAlta, in 2000. Film gradually lost its mass market appeal and came to be used primarily by film studios and film enthusiasts.

In photo production

For most of the 20th century, film was practically the only way that photographs and movies were produced.

But with the release of mass-produced digital cameras such as from Nikon (Nikon D1) and Canon (PowerShot) in the mid-90s, camera phones in the 2000s, and the dominance of smartphones with integrated digital cameras since the mid-2010s, photographic film and analog cameras have gradually lost their position in the market.

The economic challenges faced by film giants like Kodak and Fujifilm led to price increases, causing many customers to shift away from film.

Notable examples in cinema

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and Knives Out (2019)

According to director Rian Johnson, about half of the film Star Wars: The Last Jedi was shot using film cameras, and half was shot using digital cameras. "We started shooting mostly film and by the end we were shooting mostly digital." The footage shoot with digital cameras was matched to the film footage in the post production process.

After the success of achieving a consistent look with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Johnson's next film, Knives Out was shot entirely with digital cameras. This was on the advice of the film's cinematographer, Steve Yedlin (who was also the cinematographer of Star Wars: The Last Jedi). As it was possible to produce an image with a digital camera and emulation that is almost indistinguishable from film, Yedlin advocated choosing a camera for other reasons than the look it created.

The choice of camera was instead based on the extent to which it met the needs of the movie's logistics. For example, shooting digital meant the filmmakers did not have to wait days to see their dailies while the photochemical film was sent to a lab to be developed. They could also choose a camera that was reliable, precise, and versatile, without being limited to one format.

The post production process would have been the same whether the movie was shot photochemically or digitally, with the same digital post chain and digital colour correction process. Shooting digital removed the extra process of doing digital scans of film, and the labour involved in ensuring high fidelity in the scans. By not having photochemical film artifacts embedded in the captured footage, there was more control of the extent of the artifacts in post. Yedlin considered it to be easier to add halation and grain to digital video than to remove them from film footage.

The Holdovers (2023)

The Holdovers shot with the Arri Alexa Mini and a film look was emulated, inspired by 1970s cinema. This involved not only emulating the style of film stocks, but also emulating film degradation. Cinematographer Eigil Bryld explained that the goal was making the film look like it had been had been made in the 1970s, forgotten, and then found in a can in someone’s garage. According to Bryld, director Alexander Payne didn't want it to "just look like a movie set the '70s. He really wanted it to look and feel and sound like it was a movie that was actually made in the '70s."

Early in the pre-production process, Bryld intended to use '70s film stocks, but abandoned this prospect quickly as the stocks and equipment weren't readily available. Joe Gawler, a colourist who had experience doing film restoration, worked with Bryld to create the project LUT and on creating the emulated degredation.

The approach was to be inspired by the filmmaking and aesthetics of the '70s, without needing to use the specific tools used in the '70s. This approach taken throughout the project. Payne and Bryld made extensive use of cinema LED lights in the film but did not use high powered HMI (hydrargyrum medium-arc iodide) lights. This is despite HMI technology existing in the '70s, and despite cinema LED lights not existing in the '70s. Their reasoning being that the low budget filmmakers they were drawing inspiration from would have used LED lights had they been available in the '70s. They would not have used the much more expensive HMIs for low budget projects.

Reason for use

Example of a set of equipment for digital photography

There are several reasons why film emulation is a popular technology.

• Film cameras may be more affordable than professional digital equipment, however, they require specific handling skills and the need for expensive film stock, processing and scanning.
• The ability to edit a digital image at any time directly on the camera
• Digital content is created faster than film content.
• Film emulation effectively deals with a variety of digital problems such as excessive image sharpness, posterization, aesthetic colours, and contrast.
• The ability to recreate the specific characteristics of various types of film for any digital image at any production stage
• Film emulation is often utilized for nostalgic purposes, allowing creators to evoke the aesthetics of cinema from past eras.
• Film emulation allows you to add the "depth" and "warmth" of digital images that are typical of shooting on film.

Film aesthetic

Directors and visionaries like Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch or Wes Anderson shoot on film to create memorable cinematic experiences that are distinct from other styles. Their work keeps the viewer interested in the cinematic nature of the frame, how it looks and feels. The “magic of cinema” lies in the color rendering, in the depth of the picture, the shadows, but also in the director’s ability to construct the scene and inspire the actors. Film as a limited resource, a consumable material, allows every moment and movement to be unique.

“As far as I’m concerned, digital projection is the death of cinema as I know it, at least it does nothing for me. I actually think I’m getting gypped when I go to a movie, and I realise that it’s either been shot on digital or is being projected in digital. It’s the death keel, the death rattle”, - Quentin Tarantino

Photography as an art form is capable of “capturing the moment” like no other and evoking emotions and immersing you in experiences without a single sound or movement.

“You really are in there with the characters. The grain itself, it somehow makes it feel much more personal”, Gale Anne Hurd

Rise of digital content

Number of people using social media platforms, 2004 to 2018

The exponential growth of social networks and digital media in the mid-2000s spurred active demand for digital content created differently than traditional film shooting.

Users of the Instagram, TikTok and YouTube platforms, live-streaming broadcasts on Twitch and Discord create huge amounts of content each day. The use of digital methods is incentivized by simple monetization and sponsorship programs.

Film emulation offers a middle ground between here-and-now content and an authentic look.

By emulating film, creators can reconstruct the warmth, texture, and specific color palettes associated with traditional film, contributing to the overall visual language of their work. Turning to the French New Wave or interpreting American classics, they construct for the modern viewer the experience and sensations of cinemas.

This is particularly true for short formats, music videos, and fashion or art photography.

Tools like DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere or Lightroom allow anyone - an enthusiast or an entire studio - to create their work in the style of the Golden Age of Hollywood by manipulating color and tone, applying presets and advanced filters to their digital images.

Technology

Layers of 35 mm color film: 1) Film base 2) Subbing layer 3) Red light sensitive layer 4) Green light sensitive layer 5) Yellow filter 6) Blue light sensitive layer 7) UV Filter 8) Protective layer 9) Visible light exposing film

The unique aesthetics of film lie in the way the image is captured, fundamentally distinct from magnetic tape video film or the image sensor of a digital camera.

A basic photosensitive material consists of a "sandwich" structure comprising a transparent base, such as celluloid or glass, and a photographic emulsion containing photosensitive silver halide crystals. Color films contain layers of light filters.

When light contacts the photographic emulsion, a chemical reaction involving silver salts takes place, resulting in the formation of a negative image. The brighter areas of the captured scene are exposed more intensely than the darker areas, leading to their appearance as dark regions on the negative.

At the processing stage the negative is developed using photochemicals that produces a visible negative image.

To get a positive image, the negative is projected to the print media (photo paper or positive film) in a dark room, resulting in the formation of a latent positive image, which is also chemically developed into a visible positive image on a paper or print film, known as a print, either by using an enlarger or by contact printing. The final print may also be scanned to get a file for digital delivery.

The main principle of operation of digital cameras is practically no different from classic analog cameras. Instead of photographic material, a semiconductor image sensor is installed in the focal plane of the lens, registering light with electrical potentials, then reading and converting these potentials into digital values using an ADC, which are transferred to buffer memory and finally stored on a storage device or memory card as the files.

Features

Based on the method of obtaining an image, features appear on the film due to chemical processes and the medium itself. Here are some unique characteristics exclusive to photographic film, which are absent in magnetic film or image sensors:

• Interpretation of colors is more flexible, at the expense of realistic rendering and in favor of aesthetic perception.
• Film grain is the microscopic particles of metallic silver that make up the image. Silver halides are distributed unevenly in the depth of emulsion layer. Tiny grains do not exist alone, forming complex conglomerations.
• Halation is a visual effect that appear when shooting on a film as a red-orange halo near the contrasting boundaries of over-exposed areas, as well as a red glare in the mid-tones. Halation is very typical around specular highlights on reflective surfaces.
• Bloom is the combined effect of bright light dispersion on the boundaries of contrasting image areas, which originates in the optical system, and then is distorted and amplified in the multiple layers of the photographic emulsion.

Computer emulation

Basic film emulation tools are available in various video and photo editing software, such as Adobe Premiere or DaVinci Resolve. Partial list of computer film emulation methods:

Film grain. There are primarily two main methods for film grain emulation:

• Procedural generation: this method is relatively simpler to implement and does not necessitate the inclusion of extensive scans in the installation process. However, to avoid repetitive patterns, numerous scans are still required. In the case of replicating natural grain, significant processing power is necessary, and the rendering frame rate may be reduced.

• Scanning real footage: this approach involves digitally scanning authentic film footage as a reference for emulation. It provides a more accurate representation of the specific characteristics of different films. It requires access to a diverse range of scans to ensure versatility in the emulation process.

Both methods have their respective advantages and considerations when it comes to implementing film emulation in post-processing software.

Bloom. In digital photography and video, bloom can be emulated by adding a blur or glare effect around bright areas of the image.

Halation. This can be emulated by adding a blur or glow effect around bright areas of the image.

Camera and projector mechanical effects. The features mostly related to the film movement and shutter effects, typical for any device with film transportation and mechanical shutter — be it a camera, projector or video coding device (telecine or scanner).

Color grading. This often involves creating artistic effect by applying color and tone transformations characteristic to the analogue media.

Dust and scratches. Digital images often lack these artifacts, or they are deliberately removed during the image editing process.

Film softness. This nuanced attribute selectively masks high-frequency details in an image. The amount of softness largely depends on the grain size of the film. Larger grain results in a less detailed image, where crisp edges and textures become less pronounced, without losing larger details that define the contents of the image. The softness of film is simulated using grain rendering. By controlling the distribution and size of the digital grains making up the image, it's possible to reproduce film softness without it appearing artificially blurred..

Adding specific film elements. This includes features like perforations, keyсode and film gates of different shapes.

Difference from film simulation

• Film simulation gives an image the appearance of film as an abstract concept. In this case, the image receives the characteristics not of a specific historically existing film, but of some stereotypical properties. For example, the film simulation mode in Fuji cameras using Classic Chrome or Nostalgic Negative modes.
• Film emulation always presupposes the existence of a historical analogue whose specific characteristics have been emulated in the image. The creation of a film profile is preceded by studying the selected sample, scanning, sampling, building mathematical models, and studying the nuances of color rendering. All of these steps are designed to accurately recreate the aesthetics of a specific film, such as Kodak Supra 100 or Fujicolor Pro 400H.

Black and white, colour negative and reversal; 8mm, 16mm, 35mm and 65mm film gauges – many film stocks have come and have subsequently been discontinued, and specialist developing processes once available to filmmakers no longer exist (production of some Kodachrome products was discontinued by the end of 2000, for example) In many cases the only way for contemporary photography to contain the aesthetic of older film and video technology is to replicate it through post-production tools.

Notable software

Product	Photo plugin	Video plugin	Mobile application
Colourlab AI		Davinci Resolve (macOS, Windows, Linux) Adobe Premiere (macOS, Windows)
Dehancer	Adobe Photoshop / Lightroom (macOS, Windows) Capture One (macOS, Windows) Aphinity Photo (macOS, Windows)	Davinci Resolve (macOS, Windows, Linux) Adobe Premiere / After Effects (macOS, Windows) Final Cut Pro (macOS)	iOS
Filmbox		Davinci Resolve (macOS, Windows, Linux) Baselight (Linux)
Filmconvert		Davinci Resolve (macOS, Windows) Adobe Premiere / After Effects (macOS, Windows) Final Cut Pro (macOS)
Nik Collection Nik Silver Efex DxO FilmPack	DXO PhotoLab (macOS, Windows) Adobe Photoshop / Lightroom (macOS, Windows) Aphinity Photo (macOS, Windows)
Really Nice Images	TBA	Adobe Photoshop / Lightroom (macOS, Windows) Capture One (macOS, Windows)	iOS
VSCO			iOS, Android

See also

• Image editing
• Comparison of digital and film photography
• Digital content

Further reading

• Dr. R.W.G. Hunt, The Reproduction of Colour // John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, doi:10.1002/0470024275 ISBN 978-0-470-02427-0, September, 2004
• Karolina M. Sadlowska, Paulina S. Karlsson, Steven C. Brown, Independent cinema in the Digital Age: is Digital Transformation only way to Survive? // Economic and Business Review, №3, 2019
• Pavel Kosenko, LIFELIKE: A book on color in digital photography // LLC Treemedia Content, 2015
• Roberl Kolker (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Film and Media Studies // Oxford Academic, 2008
• Kodak, Shot on Film